Tag: 8th March

“Of all the rights of women, the greatest is to be a mother’ so today on the international day of women, we pay our tributes to women and the ‘mother’ in them.

“Swami Tinhi Jagaacha Aai vina Bhikaari” …

Goes the lines are from a poem in ‘Marathi’, it means that… Even the lord of all the ‘three worlds’ is a beggar without a Mother…

Yes, every one of us understands the value of this word ‘mother’ and the value of her unconditional love she showers on us. How she cares for her child, how she serves a child for his whole life till she is alive.
Those who have been fortunate to have a mother and also those who are deprived of a mother’s love know very well the value of this word ‘mother’.

In our society, culture and traditions we have highest regards for our Mother. There are numerous stories of a ‘mother’s sacrifices as well as how some of them were the inspiration behind making of our great heroes and those many famous personalities and not to forget those who may not have got the publicity or the limelight, or those whose stories of great courage, stories of successful life inspired by their mothers may not have reached to us.
Also there are many who have been able to make a mark in their life and have achieved a lot only because their Mothers and their Mothers have been a great inspiration for them and played an important role in shaping of their destiny.

Today, we salute them all and salute their ‘womanhood’ because after all before being a mother they all are ‘women’.

A girl child – a daughter, a sister, a wife- better-half, a mother – a woman plays so many important roles in and around us.
She loves, she inspires, she cares, she gives meaning to life, she is mother, she is friend, she is daughter, and she is not only wife but simply a life…
A beautiful message describes a woman as ‘ the willingness to listen, the patience to understand, the strength to support, the heart to care and just to be there … that is the beauty of a woman’..

Today also happens to be the birth anniversary of poet-lyricist Sahir Ludhianvi.

He has talked about woman’s plight, her sufferings, how she has been treated for years in the society, what challenges she face, what are her problems and many more things associated with a woman. Through his poetry and songs he has time to time discuss womanhood and have thrown light on the contemporary world where woman have been neglected, insulted and tortured.

We are all aware that Sahir Ludhianvi shared a strong bond with his mother and many of his poems on woman have been inspired by his mother’s hardships and challenges she faced during her life.

Most of the books on Sahir Ludhianvi find mention of his strong bond of relationship with his Mother and many of us are aware of this through the information in books on Sahir Ludhianvi or other sources like interviews of famous film personalities or information available on the internet.

But I don’t think that much in details have been discussed about his mother and how she faced problems after separating from her husband and upbringing of a son to a poet lyricist of this great stature that Sahir achieved in his life.
Today we throw some light on the above based on the information available in few books on Sahir Ludhianvi and some info on the internet.

In the ‘introduction’ of the book ‘ Jaag Utthhe Khwaab Kayi- Sahir Ludhianvi ’ (Penguin Books India-Yatra Books-2010) editor Murlimanohar Prasad Singh mentions that if one has to understand about Sahir’s personality, ideology, emotions, thoughts and dreams and his poetic soul and if one has to know Sahir, one has know about his mother Sardar Begam.
To put his point further he has cited the novel Mother by Maxim Gorky published in 1906 and based on which in 1926 a Russian movie Mother was made and it was directed by Vsevolod Pudovkin.
The plot of the original novel as mentioned on the Wikipedia is as given below;

In his novel, Gorky portrays the life of a woman who works in a Russian factory doing hard manual labour and combating poverty and hunger, among other hardships. Pelageya Nilovna Vlasova is the real protagonist; her husband, a heavy drunkard, physically assaults her and leaves all the responsibility for raising their son, Pavel Vlasov, to her, but unexpectedly dies. Pavel noticeably begins to emulate his father in his drunkenness and stammer, but suddenly becomes involved in revolutionary activities. Abandoning drinking, Pavel starts to bring books to his home. Being illiterate and having no political interest, Nilovna is at first cautious about Pavel’s new activities. However, she wants to help him. Pavel is shown as the main revolutionary character. Nevertheless Nilovna, moved by her maternal feelings and, though uneducated, overcoming her political ignorance to become involved in revolution, is considered the true protagonist of the novel.

(The ‘plot’ of the film ‘Mother’ made in 1926’ and is also mentioned on wiki here)

We can understand how in a male dominated society a single woman has to face the social concerns, whether she is a ‘widow’, a divorcee, or a ‘woman simply abandoned by her husband’.
The conditions in any ‘time span’ would have been the same and the reality must have been more harsh or continued to be harsh as we see it today and in such circumstances if a woman dedicated her whole life for her child then it is as exemplary as we see in the case of Sahir Ludhianvi.
For ages the story would have been the same and a woman must have fought more courageously to sustain herself in the adversity of life, and when the whole world is against her. It is difficult to face criticism from all side in around yourself and still continue this journey of life.

I have tried to visualize of how Sahir’s mother would have faced the challenges of her times and how she was able to do upbringing of Sahir and his love for poetry even in those turbulent times of her personal life when she was passing through and how her stubbornness, righteousness, virtuousness, her strong mental condition, the values , the ethics she followed, is depicted in the various poems/songs that Sahir has penned while writing the songs on woman, a mother, or a mother-son song or a father-son song for that matter.

So when we have lullaby from his pen his words are full of dreams full of love of a mother for her child;

One can think of the greatness of Sardar Begam, Sahir’s mother, who inspite of her own disturbed life when she left her husband’s home, when he married for 12th time, and she has taken her child with her and taken up his upbringing.
One can imagine how little Sahir was being fed, what values were being inculcated in him and how his life was being shaped.

(When I shared this song earlier, it reminded me of the famous poem ‘the hand that rocked the cradle, is the hand that rules the world’)

When Sahir’s mother left her husband’s home and taken the child Sahir with her, her husband tried to pressurize her to come back home or either leave the child with him.
But instead of succumbing to his demands Sardar Begam file a case against her husband for divorce and she fight for the custody of Sahir.
Sahir’s father had even threatened of killing Sahir.
During all this time Sahir’s mother must have surely been worried about the uncertain future of her child and a thought losing her child or even what will happen to the child if she is not there must have passed through her mind.

Seeing his mother struggling, going through trials and tribulations a child at young age can understand the reality but given his age and his limitations he could assure his mother that one day he will stand for her

And that is why even when Sahir entered adulthood his mother was the centre of his being and when Sahir established himself as a successful lyricist he does everything to ensure that his mother is happy and whenever she was upset Sahir would get tense and he could not be at rest till he get to know that everything is well with his mother.

The troubles she had gone through in bringing up Sahir, after separating from her husband and all the difficulties of a being a woman is what we find expressed in various poems of Sahir and those that later on become part of films.

Sahir’s mother left him in 1976 and after four years of her Sahir left us on 25.10.1980.

(note : On the second thought, and knowing about the relationship between Jan Nisar Akhtar and the few years Javed Akhtar spent with Sahir Saab it will be interesting to know if the character of mother and the famous dialogue ‘ mere paas maa hain’ from the film Deewaar was at any time inspired from Sahir’s life. Rather I strongly feel that it must have been.
Recently I even tried to speak to Javed Saab but he was out of Mumbai for some work)

For today’s post to present with a song I had this song marked very much earlier when I get a chance to share some of the above songs for Atul ji’s blog.